It suddenly occurred to me while in New Mexico that when I returned to MN I’d only have a couple more days of 3fs—and I had like four months of unposted pictures to upload.

I could give excuses—grad school (master’s thesis), my computer repeatedly went down, I had spotty connection to internet, etc., etc., but all of these are just excuses, and now that I’ve reached the end of the year I feel badly I haven’t done a better job. I think this is for one main reason: I just haven’t been terribly happy the last year.

When I first took on 3fs, I thought this year would be momentous and exciting. In a lot of ways it was. I knew I would get married before 3fs started, and that has been awesome. I finally finished graduate school and now have an MFA. But the rest seems to be a haze. I am tired and worn out—and I look it—which is why I hardly ever take pictures of my face these days. I dislike working from home—at least working from home every day. I feel cut off from people and places, and it seems like I’m treading water.

When I look over the past year, there is a lot that stands out, but I realize I felt happiest that first month of the year—when I was in New Mexico. I thought I would be returning in May, but for a lot of reasons, that didn’t pan out. Hopefully though, ’09 will be the year it actually happens.

In the meantime, I am going to get the photos I have from the last two (dark) months of grad school up—even if they don’t come until after the first.